Surprising Origin of American Flamingos Discovered

Scientists have long wondered whether the bright pink birds are native to Florida.

Few of us Floridians are native to the state. Even our emblematic flamingos were widely thought to be escapees from captivity—until now.

A new study sheds new light on a long-standing controversy by suggesting flamingos are indeed true residents of the Sunshine State.

Food and Feathers

There are six species of flamingo, and the American, or greater, flamingo is found in Florida. The bird also lives in the Caribbean, Mexico, and South America.

"During the 1800s, it was commonly accepted that [flamingos] were native," says study leader Steven M. Whitfield, a conservation ecologist at Zoo Miami's Conservation and Research Department.

Naturalist John James Audubon himself visited Florida in the 1830s specifically to see flamingos, Whitfield says by email. By 1900, though, flamingos had been hunted for food, skins, and feathers—almost to their vanishing point. (Related: "What's Your Favorite Extinct Species? Scientists' Top Picks.")

As flamingos disappeared from the wild, random sightings of the bird began to be considered fugitives from captive populations. In the 1950s, for example, captive flamingos would regularly escape from Hialeah Park Race Track.

"That coincidence just led the experts at the time to come to the conclusion that they were escapees," says co-author Jerry Lorenz, state research director for Audubon's Everglades Science Center.

Return of the Native

"Instead, it's the historic population in the very beginnings of a recovery."

Flamingo Mysteriously Appears in a San Diego Salt Marsh, Far From HomeThis flamingo has mysteriously found its way to the outskirts of San Diego.

In the study, published recently in The Condor: Ornithological Applications, the authors pored over historical and museum records that suggest flamingos are native to Florida. For example, the scientists found a reference to four flamingo egg specimens from the 1880s, indicating the birds nested in the state at that time.

Tongue-Tied

They stand five feet tall, with a wingspan of up to 50 inches, and "almost give off their own light," thanks to the brilliant pink from their diet of snails, crustaceans, and crabs—without which they'd turn gray, he says. (Read about a rare, jet-black flamingo spotted in Cyprus.)

The oddest thing about flamingos is their tongue, which the Romans considered a delicacy, he notes.